Let’s start with the basics: SVOD is a new, easy way to watch TV and movies on your compatible device including smartphones, tablets, computers and TVs – just BYO internet, data and device! For a low monthly fee you are given access to a library of awesome TV and Movies without ads for you to stream at home (or watch on the go!).

With thousands of hours of movies and TV available whenever you want, services like recently launched Starz Play http://www.starzplay.com will change how we access entertainment forever. Here are just a few ways how:

Entertainment when you want it.

The best thing about streaming services is that you can watch what you want, when you want and for as long as you want 24 hours a day. From the latest blockbusters and top classic films, to your favourite Series , kids programming – it all sits in one place and (more importantly) for a single monthly fee. As a service like Starz Play is accessible via your smartphone, tablet, computer or television (using Humax’s H1 Box ), it’s around wherever you are: You could catch up on Power whilst you wait for your morning coffee, Humans on your Uni study break or the Movie UP at home with the kids – easy!

For the Love of Spoilers!

SVOD services make it easier than ever to ‘Binge-Watch’ your way through an entire season of television, with a huge library of full seasons of your favourite shows completely uninterrupted by ad-breaks.

It also gives you access to loads of new TV shows fast-tracked from the US. We all have that friend or co-worker who can’t wait to spoil the latest episode of your favourite show, and it’s almost impossible to avoid spoilers on social media – why wait when you can catch it whenever and wherever you want!

Share the love.

With Starz Play you can register 5 devices on the same account, with changes to those devices permitted whenever you like. And with the ability to view on two different devices at once, everyone in the house can watch what they want.

You can even set up individual profiles for watch playlists, and Starz ’s Parental control function makes it easy to set up a profile restricted by classification so your kids don’t watch anything you don’t want them to see.

An evolution in entertainment.

SVOD is not only changing the way we watch entertainment, it’s changing the way entertainment is created full stop. The rise of ‘binge-watch’ TV means writers are no longer pressured to extend storylines, leading to some of the finest television shows in history.

We dare you to watch a single episode of Power , Black Sails or Penny Dreadul without hanging around for another – it’s not as easy as it sounds…

Save your cash for popcorn.

Above all, SVOD pricing is highly competitive making it a really affordable entertainment option. For one monthly fee you are given access to thousands of hours’ of some of the hottest movies, TV series & kids content in a constantly updated library. Think about it, with Starz Play at $12.99 a month you can have all that entertainment for about the same price as lunch!

Shyam Saran is a hawk in the Indian Foreign Office and former Foreign Secretary of the Indian government. He is currently Chairman, Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS), and Senior Fellow, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi. He is Indian nationalist that is Pakistanphobic, Anti-Nepal, and Anti-Lanka xenophobic author who works to build India into a world power.
Saran recently made minced-meat out of the Najam Sethi-Mazar Abbas-Kamran Khan cabal that tried to peddle the “Aman Ki Asha” nonsense as “a new realization massively supported by the people of Pakistan who have accepted the notion that they have to make peace with India”. Obviously there is no such realization and no great movement for an unfair and imposed peace which forces Pakistanis to forget Kashmir, Sir Creek and Siachin. The Najam Sethi-Mazar Abbas-Kamran Khan cabal was snubbed by Saran and the other participants from India. When he had his teeth kicked in Sethi tried to blame things on the old guard. The old guard reminded Sethi that the younger Indians are even more radical and conservative.

The range of Pakistan’s India-centric missiles. The Pakistani missile program is helping it develop a space program.
Saran and his bosses are however jittery about Pakistan’s Nuclear program. He and the entire Bharati government are anxious that Pakistan now has more nukes than Bharat. Delhi has known that Pakistan has a more affective delivery system than Bharat. Delhi has been trying to catch up. Now it has come to the realization that Delhi has been unable to get the Pakistani program sequestered. Saran is now peddling the story that “Islamabad’s expanding nuclear capability is no longer driven solely by its oft-cited fears of India but by the paranoia about U.S. attacks on its strategic assets”.

Clear and present danger to the world: Indian Nukes reside in Naxal controlled country
Saran’s premise seems to inform the Americans about something that they have “overlooked”. As if the folks in the Pentagon are naive buffoons, and it takes a retired Secretary from Delhi to show them the Nuclear reality in South Asia.

Chinese Pakistani Nexus map. The Trade between China and Pakistan consolidates a friendship as old as the Himalayas. Bharati (aka Indian) analysts are increasingly worried about the growing nexus between Pakistan and China–increasingly called as “Chipak” on the pattern of “ChiAmerica”. Many analysts are beginning to see the world divided among the two superpowers China and America (ChiAmerica) and the regional force in at least West and South Asia being ChiPak. With the US increasingly looking after the Americas and Europe, it would be natural to give China the areas in which it has the greatest influence already–Asia and Africa. Why ‘Chinusa’, Chipak will rule the world & why Chindia failed–An Indian perspective
There is nothing new is Saran’s Pakistanphobia. His article in the most liberal paper (despite its religious name) in Bharat, “The Hindu”, gives us deep insight into the new Bharati strategy to malign Pakistan. Actually its not new, its old wine in new bottle. Even though Delhi exploded its first Nuclear device in 1992, it tried to keep up the fiction of a “nuclear explosion for peaceful purposes”. Egged on by Bill Clinton, the BJP government finally exploded a Bomb (as if the first one was Candy shower) in 1998. This time Pakistan was ready, and despite the recalcitrance of the Sharif government (which had wobbly knees for 2 weeks), the Pakistani army made sure that the explosions were responded to with Nuclear explosions. Pakistan since then has been demanding “parity” a term that Bharati diplomatic circles had not heard since the Abub-Nehru era.
This baffled the Saran gang –this surely was a step backward for Bharat. It had hoped to deal with Pakistan, like it had been dealing with the Maldives and Lanka. This was no longer possible and dreams of regional hegemony were going up in smoke. The explosions in 1998 informed Delhi that it would no longer be able to bully Pakistan, or Lanka, Bhutan and Nepal for that matter.
Delhi then tried to jump on the anti-terror bandwagon. It hides the Samjhota Express act of terror carried on by a serving colonel of the Indian Army (who used Indian Army issued plastique to bomb a train-bogey full of Pakistanis (more than 50 were killed). Samjhota preceded Mumbai –and Colonel Prohit (who went to a Delhi courthouse dressed in full Saffron Regalia) has yet to face justice. The Indian Army has never been cleared and there has been no independent commission to investigate the Indian Army’s involvement in blowing up Samjhota Express.
When Delhi failed to get Pakistan declared as a terrorist state, it tried to spread rumors about the safety of Pakistan’s Nuclear Assets. The world didn’t buy it — and despite the drones, NATO, ISAF and the US military remains beholden to the Pakistani Army and Pakistani geography. Washington is more worried about securing a supply route for the retreating American Army, than about Pakistani Nukes — even the Plutonium ones.

Saran is now harping on a new strategy to malign Pakistan. The new strategy is now pumping up Americans with these sorts of lines “Islamabad’s expanding nuclear capability is no longer driven solely by its oft-cited fears of India but by the paranoia about U.S. attacks on its strategic assets”

In affect, Saran and company are trying to say that Pakistan’s program is now geared towards America — and he is egging on the Americans to take action against Pakistan as a potential enemy.

Saran reminds the world and his readers that Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine has shifted from “minimum deterrence” to “second strike capability” (amazingly Saran forgets Pakistan’s 3rd strike capability) to “both strategic and tactical weapons”. Saran points out that the upgraded weapons are “consolidating Pakistan’s deterrence capability at all levels of the threat spectrum” making a “deliberate shift from the earlier generation of enriched uranium nuclear weapons to a newer generation of plutonium weapons”, “miniaturisation of weapons”, “improved the range and accuracy of its delivery vehicles”.

India’s Aqau bomb: Water wars between India and Pakistan
He then puts up red herrings about “setting up of two plutonium production reactors at Khusab with a third and fourth under construction…with a capacity to reprocess 10 to 20 tonnes annually”.
Saran correctly points out that that Pakistan’s “Tactical nuclear weapons are said to be a response to India’s so-called “Cold Start” doctrine or its suspected intention to launch quick response punitive thrusts across the border in case of another major cross-border terrorist strike”.
“Pakistan’s strategic objective has been expanded to the acquisition of a ‘full-spectrum capability’ comprising a land, air and sea-based triad of nuclear forces, to put it on a par with India”.
Saran finally gets to the punchline “The Pakistani military and civilian elite is convinced that the United States has also become a dangerous adversary, which seeks to disable, disarm or take forcible possession of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons”.

While Sethi and others at Geo were flying peace doves with fake Bharatis, and were on their knees begging FM Irfan for a Manmohan trip or reciprocity to Islamabad’s concessions Saran was writing this article for the Hindu spewing venom against Pakistan — “Thus the recent shifts in Pakistan’s nuclear strategy cannot be ascribed solely to the traditional construct of India-Pakistan hostility. They appear driven mainly by the fear of U.S. assault on its strategic assets.”

A few weeks ago myself and an entire generation of Pakistanis and anti-terror folks around the world demanded a cross-border action against the TTP terrorists.

Today the Interior Minister Rehman malik has warned of a “secret operation” in Afghanistan against Maullana Fazlullah and Faqirullah “if they do not halt their terrorist activity in Pakistan.”

What nonsense. Why would Mr. Malik announce a “secret operation”? Why is he sending threats against Fazlullah and Faqirullah? Why hasn’t he already ordered the operation? Is the ISI sleeping? Is the army drinking sattoo? First Malik squeamishly demands “extradition”, now he issues this silly threat. We are sure the TTP and its foreign sponsors isn’t shaking in its boots from the Malik threat

Malik said “if any Pakistani was killed in the future, an operation would be conducted against terrorists hiding in Afghanistan.”

What garbage. How many more Pakistanis need to die before the TTP is decapitated and decimated?

“We will reply if there is any activity from Afghanistan,” Malik said.

Sure!

Malik added that “he would provide details regarding the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in his upcoming book.”

Anything less than “I did it” would be unacceptable! He really needs to explain his actions post murder–when he took off in the back-up vehicle. He also needs to explain his connection with Shahanshah and and who killed Shahanshah. Malik also needs to shed light on the strange actions of Shahashah while benazir was making a speech at Liaqat Bagh.

For US policy makers, India did not exist on the world map. Many analysts wondered why Bharat was left out and not discussed or mentioned?

Sadanand Dhume, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (a Conservative Neocon think tank) “India is much less central to US foreign policy than many pundits in New Delhi would like to believe.”

“India is a large and inward-looking country and in many ways it sees itself as the centre of Asia whereas in reality as this debate shows it is not quite the case,” Dhume, a contributing writer to The Wall Street Journal.

Romney (Photo credit: Talk Radio News Service)

Nuanced but discernible: Romney Slightly more supportive of Pakistan during debate and during the campaign.

There was no vitriol against Pakistan, but Obama was more negative–especially when he justified the raid on Abbotabad. There didn’t seem to be much of a policy difference among the candidates on Pakistan. The foreign policy differences between the two candidates were slight. There were distinct nuances, but neither supported continuation of war, or the announcement of new wars. Both candidates are supportive of continued engagement and continuation of aid to Pakistan.

“But it’s important for us to recognise that we can’t just walk away from Pakistan. But we do need to make sure that as we send support for them, that this is tied to them making progress on – on matters that would lead them to becoming a civil society,” Romney said.

Romney voiced his support for the President’s ongoing policy of using unmanned weapons to attack terrorist targets, saying the U.S. should be ready by “any and all means necessary to take out people who pose a threat to us and our friends around the world.”

Romney on drones: “I believe we should use any and all means necessary to take out people who pose a threat to us and our friends around the world. And it’s widely reported that drones are being used in strikes, and I support that and entirely, and feel the president was right over the usage of that technology, and believe that we should continue to use it, to continue to go after the people that represent a threat to this nation and to our friends. But let me also note that as I said earlier, we’re going to have to do more than just going after leaders and – and killing bad guys, important as that is.”

Both are concerned about Pakistan’s Nuclear program. Even though Governor Romney has supported the drone strikes, he has generally been more supportive of Pakistan during the debate and during the campaign. Romney had declared that America should have sought permission from Pakistan before making the Osama raid. Obama displayed his general distrust for Pakistan during the debate when he said that if we had sought permission from Pakistan, Osama Bin Laden would have escaped. For the record, both candidates have supported withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014 with some nuanced differences. Romney said that the withdrawal would depend on conditions on the ground (which Obama will also do–but Obama’s withdrawal date is confirmed as per VP Biden).

Obama was not very positive about Pakistan “if we had asked Pakistan permission, we would not have gotten him (bin Laden). And it was worth moving heaven and earth to get him.”

WASHINGTON, DC – MAY 1: In this handout image provided by The White House, President Barack Obama talks on the phone in the Oval Office before making a statement to the media about the mission against Osama bin Laden, May 1, 2011 in Washington, DC. The President made a series of calls, including to Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton and others, to inform them of the successful mission. U.S. President Barack Obama announced that the United States had killed the most-wanted terrorist Osama Bin Laden in an operation led by U.S. Special Forces at a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

When asked if the US should “divorce” Pakistan, Romney gave a strong No to the question.

“No, it’s not time to divorce a nation on Earth that has 100 nuclear weapons and is on the way to double that at some point, a nation that has serious threats from terrorist groups within its nation,” Romney.

“But we do need to make sure that, as we send support for them, that this is tied to them making progress on matters that would lead them to becoming a civil society.”

Obama on the other hand was all over the map and didn’t quiet answer the question, though he did want to stay engaged with Pakistan.

Both the candidates are supportive of the Drone strikes, but Romney may revert to the Bush position if faced with defiance from Islamabad (which has been lacking during the PPP government)–as may Obama. The Republican contender Mitt Romney said that he would continue to engage with Pakistan and would not abandon it because it was a Nuclear power. “So we’re going to have to remain helpful in encouraging Pakistan to move towards a more stable government and rebuild a relationship with us. And that means that our aid that we provide to Pakistan is going to have to be conditioned upon certain benchmarks being met.” He also said that “It is important for the US to recognise that it cannot just walk away from Pakistan, Romney”.

The 65-year-old Romney responding to a question about the US withdrawal said that Pakistan “is important to the region, to the world and to us” because it had 100 nuclear warheads and was rushing to build a lot more. “They’ll have more than Great Britain sometime in the relatively near future,” Romney said. “They also have the Haqqani network and Taliban existent within their country. And so a Pakistan that falls apart, becomes a failed state would be of extraordinary danger to Afghanistan and us,” he added. Romney argued that despite a strained relationship with Pakistan, the United States cannot afford to “divorce” Pakistan, which is a nation of over 100 nuclear weapons. “No, it’s not time to divorce a nation on earth that has a hundred nuclear weapons and is on the way to double that at some point, a nation that has serious threats from terrorist groups within its nation, the Taliban, Haqqani network. It’s a nation that’s not like others and that does not have a civilian leadership that is calling the shots there,” he said.

Romney supported Pakistan by saying “And so we’re going to have to remain helpful in encouraging Pakistan to move towards a more stable government and rebuild the relationship with us. And that means that our aid that we provide to Pakistan is going to have to be conditioned upon certain benchmarks being met.”

Romney supported Obama by saying. “I don’t blame the administration for the fact that the relationship with Pakistan is strained. We had to go into Pakistan; we had to go in there to get Osama bin Laden. That was the right thing to do,” said the Republican presidential candidate during Af-Pak section of the debate.

Roney said “This is an important part of the world for us. Pakistan is technically an ally, and they’re not acting very much like an ally right now. But we have some work to do. And I – I don’t blame the administration for the fact that the relationship with Pakistan is strained. We had to go into Pakistan. We had to go in there to get Osama bin Laden. That was the right thing to do. And that upset them, but obviously there was a great deal of anger even before that. But we’re going to have to work with the people in Pakistan to try and help them move to a more responsible course than the one that they’re on. And it’s important for them. It’s important for the nuclear weapons. It’s important for the success of Afghanistan.”

Discussing Pakistan, Romney said, “It’s a nation that’s not like others and that does not have a civilian leadership that is calling the shots there.

“You’ve got the ISI, their intelligence organisation is probably the most powerful of the three branches there. Then you have the military and then you have the civilian government. This is a nation which if it falls apart — if it becomes a failed state, there are nuclear weapons there and you’ve got — you’ve got terrorists there who could grab their — their hands onto those nuclear weapons”

President Obama is the only US president, or possibly the only American politician that has held office that correctly pronounces the name of the country.

The world is appalled. All civilized nations have condemned it. The Burmese (aka Mayanmar) authorities are on a rampage and have been on a rampage. The Muslims have been stripped of their citizenship and have no rights as human being.

The kingdom of Mrohaung used to own vast territories which included Chittagong. The kingdom came into conflict with the Mughals during the reign of Aurenzeb. It did survive the attacks, and continued to be independent for much longer. The British in all their wisdom did not give Mrohaung its independence when they left Burma.

As of 2012, 800,000 Rohingya live in Myanmar. Burma occupied the Muslim kingdom of Arakan on December 31st, 1784. Following the Burmese conquest of Arakan in 1785, as many as 35,000 Arakanese people fled to the neighbouring Chittagong region of British Bengal in 1799 to avoid Burmese persecution and seek protection from British India.

The Human Rights Watch urged the government of Myanmar to take immediate steps to stop violence against the Rohingya Muslim population in the Arakan State of western Myanmar.

The stateless Rohingya,have long been considered by the United Nations as one of the most persecuted minorities on the planet.

Aung San Suu Kyi is silent.

The United Nations on Friday warned that the hostilities could jeopardise the country’s widely-praised reforms, which include the release of hundreds of political prisoners and the election of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to parliament.

The United Nations earlier said 3,200 had made their way towards shelters in Sittwe, with a further several thousand on the way.

Residents of one camp in a coastal area on the outskirts of Sittwe said they could see boatloads of Rohingya on the shore.

“The security forces are not allowing them to come in. Some people are on the shore and some are still on their boats.”

He added the group of several thousand people, including women and children, was believed to be from just two towns.

Burma’s president Thein Sein’s has admitted an unprecedented wave of ethnic violence has targeted his country’s Rohingya Muslim population, destroying whole villages and large parts of towns.

The attacks in Arakan province in the country’s west – also known as Rakhine – appears to have been part of a wave of communal violence pitting Arakan Buddhists against Muslims .

New satellite imagery shows extensive destruction of homes and other property in a predominantly Rohingya Muslim area of the coastal town of Kyauk Pyu – the epi-center of widespread new violence and displacement.

Aung San Suu Kyi, the darling of the West is silent.

The Rohingya, are under “vicious attack”. Rangoon must ensure protection for the affected Muslim and Buddhist communities in the region.

A total of 811 destroyed building structures can be identified from the images of the eastern edge of Kyauk Pyu city – a Rohingya area. The destruction was caused by arson attacks occurring October 24.

The victims were mostly Muslim Rohingyas.

“Unless the authorities also start addressing the root causes of the violence, it is only likely to get worse,” said Phil Robertson, HRW deputy Asia director.

“Burma’s government urgently needs to provide security for the Rohingya in Arakan state, who are under vicious attack,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Unless the authorities also start addressing the root causes of the violence, it is only likely to get worse.”

Myanmar State television had reported Friday night that 67 people had died, 95 been injured and 2,818 houses were burned down from Sunday through Thursday in seven of the state’s townships. Human Rights Watch said that the true death toll is higher than that officially reported, based on witnesses’ accounts and a history of government undercounting in cases that might reflect badly on it.

Why doesn’t Aung San Suu Kyi speak up?

Muslim settlements have existed in Arakan since the arrival of Arabs there in the 8th century CE. The direct descendants of Arab settlers are believed to live in central Arakan near Mrauk-U and Kyauktaw townships, rather than the Mayu frontier area, the present day area where a majority of Rohingya are populated, near Chittagong Division, Bangladesh.

According to Charles Kimball In the 14th century Arakan was a pawn that frequently changed hands in the struggles between Ava and Pegu. Things began to look up, however, when King Narameikhla (1404-34), aided by the sultan of Bengal, recovered his throne from a pro-Burmese usurper. At the end of his reign he built a splendid new capital, Mrohaung, and Arakan’s golden age began.

Kimbal says that “Relations with the Mogul Empire went from bad to worse as the 17th century progressed. The first Mogul attack retook Dacca, but the invading fleet was smashed before it could get out of the Ganges delta (1629). In 1660 a Mogul prince, Shah Shuja, fled to Mrohaung when he failed to keep his brother, Aurangzeb, from usurping the Mogul throne. Shah Shuja asked for ships to convey his family and retinue to Mecca, but none were supplied. Then the Arakanese king, Sandathudamma, asked for one of Shah Shuja’s daughters in marriage and was indignantly refused. Fearing he would be handed over to the Moguls, Shah Shuja tried to escape; on the second attempt he was killed in a riot and his treasures were confiscated.”

Kimbal futher adds that “When Aurangzeb heard the news, he demanded the surrender of Shah Shuja’s children; Sandathudamma refused and war broke out. At first the war went well for Arakan, with the Feringhi making two devastating raids on the Bengal coast. But at a crucial moment they quarreled with the Arakanese, and when the Moguls offered employment most of the Feringhi switched sides. The result was an overwhelming Mogul victory at the battle of Dianga (1666), where the Arakanese fleet was destroyed and Chittagong (held by Arakan since 1459) was taken back.”

Early evidence of Bengali Muslim settlements in Arakan date back to the time of King Narameikhla (1430–1434) of the Kingdom of Mrauk U. After 24 years of exile in Bengal, he regained control of the Arakanese throne in 1430 with military assistance from the Sultanate of Bengal. The Bengalis who came with him formed their own settlements in the region.

Following the Burmese conquest of Arakan in 1785, as many as 35,000 Arakanese people fled to the neighbouring Chittagong region of British Bengal in 1799 to avoid Burmese persecution and seek protection from British India.

Rohingya scholars have successfully written the Rohingya language in various scripts including Arabic, Hanifi, Urdu, Roman, and Burmese, where Hanifi is a newly developed alphabet derived from Arabic with the addition of four characters from Latin and Burmese.

British Francis Buchanan-Hamilton in his 1799 article “A Comparative Vocabulary of Some of the Languages Spoken in the Burma Empire,” Buchanan-Hamilton stated: “I shall now add three dialects, spoken in the Burma Empire, but evidently derived from the language of the Hindu nation. The first is that spoken by the Mohammedans, who have long settled in Arakan, and who call themselves Rooinga, or natives of Arakan.

MA Chowdhury a historian says that among the Muslim populations in Myanmar, the term ‘Mrohaung’ (Old Arakanese Kingdom) was corrupted to Rohang. And thus inhabitants of the region are called Rohingya.

Amnesty International also issued a separate statement calling for more government action to protect lives.

“These latest incidents between Muslim Rohingyas and Buddhists demonstrate how urgent it is that the authorities intervene to protect everyone, and break the cycle of discrimination and violence,” Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific deputy director, Isabelle Arradon, said in a statement.

In June, ethnic violence in Rakhine killed at least 90 people and destroyed more than 3,000 homes. About 75,000 have been living in refugee camps ever since. Curfews have been in place in some areas since the earlier violence and were extended in scope this past week.

The unrest in Rakhine state has caused a fresh exodus of people fleeing for safety from Rohingya minority areas.

Aung San Suu Kyi doesn’t say anything!

Tens of thousands of mainly Muslim Rohingya are already crammed into squalid camps around the state capital Sittwe after deadly violence in June. Rakhine state officials said the latest bloodshed had caused an influx of boats carrying around 6,000 people to the city.

“The local government is planning to relocate them to a suitable place. We are having problems because more people are coming,” said Rakhine government spokesman Hla Thein. Some of the displaced are still on boats while several thousand have docked on an island opposite Sittwe.

Chris Lewa, head of the Arakan Project, which campaigns for Rohingya rights, said the recent spate of clashes were “far deadlier” than the June unrest.

“Rakhine State has now spiraled into complete lawlessness,” she told news agency AFP on Saturday. “Violence is spreading to the south and east with the clear purpose of expelling all Muslims, not just Rohingya.”

Very poor cosmetic surgery will never take away the scars and when the cretins in the corridor of Pakistani power tell India that Pakistan is prepared to look to the future and not our history you are so wrong.

Krishna made unacceptable statements about Pakistan and its links to International terrorism and linking the talks to the Mumbai attack before his arrival. He is a diplomatic therefore satisfies all corners of Idnian society and continues charge an innocent Pakistan.

This is a Politician who has no real credible plan for peace and is using diplomacy to jostle for a greater role in Central Asia. It is clear at the back of this facade is America who feels they can make these two countries come together without a real push for a framework of Peace.

Pakistan can never give up Kashmir and India has made it clear she will never give up the occupation of India and the UN resolution will continue to stand against India.

Pakistan is owed so much by India and without India delivering what belongs to Pakistan, these two neighbours can never ersolve their differences and will continue to play the other off in a post American invasion of Afghanistan.

An empty series of meetings, empty promises and the usual cosmetic surgery to hide the scars of partition and 2 centuries of divisions left by the British.

I will say if India has the conviction to peace and give Kashmiris their self determination and remove forces from Siachen, return Sir Creek, Manvadar and Junagadh. At the same time drastically change her Pakistan centric hatefilled media & foreign policy she will have so much to gain.

Together Pakistan & india can link Central Asia, North Asia with South Asia & The Asia Pacific. We can make this Asia’s century a region with far more potential than Europe. Instead we will remain fragmented as nations across Asia and non Asian state actors will take advantage of these divides, monopolising on the potential we have as one to make themselves prosperous.

Bold moves will be needed from India if real Peace is to come about & I speak as a Kashmiri and a Pakistani, we in Pakistani will only then appreciate the gesture of friendship which will be reciprocated.

We as a nation had nothing to do with Mumbai and certainly our ISI and government had nothing to do with Mumbai while India continues to arm, fund terrorists from within Afghanistan to kill, main Pakistani men, women and children.

I talk about the sold out Sardars of Baloch that have never represented the proud and patriotic Balochis. I talk about Tereek-e-Taliban and I talk about the attrocities of Indian military in Kashmir.

Why does Pakistan suddenly excuse Indian aggression, attrocity towards Pakistani people. 65 years of aggression, hate for Pakistan and 2 centuries of hatred for the Muslim inhabitants of the Indus sonce the white man set foot on the sub continent.

There will be no movement by India on Siachen, Sir Creek, Junagadh, Manvadar and they will never allow peace and tranquility to flourish in Jammu & Kashmir. Jammu & Kashmir which has seen a rise in attacks on innoent Muslim Kashmiris this year, thousands of year old masjids burnt, desecration of the noble Qu’ran Al Furqaan on numerous incidents across Kashmir.

India has absolute contempt for an Islamic Kashmir and has no intention to give Kashmiris their right to a fere and fair plebiscite as agree through a UN resolution.

India and our contact with Indians winessed daily on this and many sites have contempt for Pakistan and Pakistanis and we have equally returned that favour.

If India really seeks a stable and progressive Pakistan she will have to accept Pakistan as an equal, bring peace to Kashmir and stop meddling in Pakistani politics nor plotting terror inside Pakistan.

If India really seeks a stable and progressive Pakistan she needs to curn her home grown Hindu terrorists and stop defaming Islam and mistreating Muslims which has direct repercussions on her relationship with the Islamic rrepublic of Pakistan.

If India really wants peace Pakistan needs to understand it should stop demonising Pakistanis and control her scavangerous media against Pakistan and Pakistanis.

For us a real sign of Peace is resolving Kashmir, returning Sir Creek, Manvadar, Junagadh to Pakistan. A complete stop of Indian terrorist activities in West & Central Asia aimed at Pakistan.

We do not need bollywood and visas we need conviction and tangible tokens of a real friendship.

Was Musa Ibm Maymun the great Arab Scholar a Muslim or was Moses Maimonides a Jew. In a great testimonial to interfaith harmony the magnificent Sultan Saladin had appointed many Jews to the highest ranks in his cabinet. Moses Maimonides was one such individual. He was the potent Surgeon General and personal physician with immense powers.

Moses Maimonides is considered the most important thinker of modern Jewish thinking. He is often called “the 2nd Moses” to highlight his importance. However most Arab scholars own him as an Arab thinker. This offers us great opportunity to build interfaith bridges among the monotheist religions. To this purpose we wormed AJMA (American Joint Multifaith Association).http://www. ajma.org

Among Maimonides scholars there is a long-standing debate regarding the allegation that as an adolescent he and his family converted to Islam

Citing four Arabic sources, Kraemer surmises that Maimonides “practiced Islam in Fez and eventually left and sailed to Acre. We do not know whether he was already a practicing Muslim when he came to Fez.”

Not only did Musa write and work for the Jewish community openly, he is considered the most important writer of Jewish thought who really consecrated Jewish ideas. Now Magid seems to repeat what Islamic scholars have been saying for hundreds of years. Most of the ideas proposed by Moses were hugely influenced by Muslim thinkers and Islamic thought. In this sense Judaism owes Islam a lot. The formation of Kaballah from Sufisim is one such example. Magid lists the “pillars” as another.

Once, when discussing passages from The Guide for the Perplexed and Mishneh Torah, a Muslim scholar insisted that Maimonides’ positions were “pure Islam” and that “Ibn Maimun” — as he is known in Arabic — “is a small ‘m’ Muslim,” citing chapter and verse of thinkers Maimonides never mentions.

Kraemer’s lights, Maimonides did not simply live and work among Muslims; his entire worldview was infused with Islamic methods, ideas and ideology.

The author argues, for example, that the subtle balance in Maimonides’s legal code between “preservation of tradition on one side, and change and progress on the other” stems from his melding of the Talmudic tradition with key principles of Islamic legal interpretation

The fact that Maimonides cites some Islamic sources, especially the philosopher Abu Nasar al-Farabi (c. 870-950), is well known. More subtle is the way even his ostensibly Jewish positions, and the methods he uses to reach them, appear to be taken, sometimes verbatim, from the Muslim tradition

More subtle is the way even his ostensibly Jewish positions, and the methods he uses to reach them, appear to be taken, sometimes verbatim, from the Muslim tradition. One of Maimonides’ great theological innovations, for example, was his Thirteen Principles of Faith, a list of Judaism’s central beliefs.

As Judaism is a religion founded on law and not on belief per se, no such creed had been attempted before. But the notion of principles, or pillars, of faith had existed for some time in Islam, and Kraemer contends that several of Maimonides’s specific articles of faith — including the first (God’s existence), second (divine unity) and particularly the third (God is not a corporeal being) — reflect the influence of such Islamic thinkers as al-Farabi, Ibn Sina and Ibn Tumart, founder of the Almohad movement.

Musa Ibn Maymun as he is known to Arabs wrote all his books in Arabic except one. According to my friend Rabbi Vernon, the lines between the faiths were not so sacrosanct at the time of the ’2nd Moses”. Moses says as much. His one of his letters he says that there are multiple paths to salvation and certainly Islam and Judaism are two of the main ones. His sons were Muslims.

Two ironies emerge from Kraemer’s book.

First, that the great architect of medieval and modern Judaism seems to have lived for a time, at least outwardly, as a Muslim; whether this was a feigned or true conversion, he was an insider in Muslim culture.

And second, that what is often considered original in Maimonides is not very original at all. Throughout the book, Kraemer shows how many of Maimonides’ contributions are derivative, not just of Aristotle andPlato, but also of Muslim thinkers.

He notes that Maimonides’s discussion of the five types of speech in Jewish law employs the same five categories contained in Islamic jurisprudence.

He shows that Maimonides’s prohibition of using sacred poems for mundane purposes (such as setting them to music at communal gatherings) is taken directly from a commentary on Plato’s Republic by the Muslim philosopher Averroes.

This age old controversy is addressed once again my Magid in a new book

The Great Islamic Rabbi

Did one of Judaism’s most venerable sages live as a Muslim?

There are few things all Jews can agree on, but one may be that there is no figure in Judaism in the last 1,000 years who is as revered as Moses ben Maimon (1135-1204), better known by the Greek form of his name, Maimonides. Reformers and ultra-traditionalists, rationalists and mystics claim him as their inspiration. He created the template for medieval and modern Jewish thinking on matters stretching from law to science, medicine to philosophy, messianism to politics.

Joel L. Kraemer’s extensive biography Maimonides brings this venerated rabbi and physician to life for a new generation of readers. It is the work of a scholar deeply engaged with Maimonides’ ideas and the world in which he lived; the book is lucid, entertaining and incisive. While many biographies of Maimonides have been written, Kraemer does what few have attempted: He presents the great Jewish sage as deeply embedded in an Islamic cultural, religious and intellectual milieu.

The book is divided into two parts: an analysis of the Islamic context in which Maimonides lived, describing in detail the places he frequented (Spain, Morocco, the Holy Land and Egypt) and the people he met; and a survey of his writings, including volumes of letters and records of his extensive medical practice as well as his 14-volume code of Jewish law, Mishneh Torah, and his philosophical masterwork, The Guide for the Perplexed.

Among Maimonides scholars there is a long-standing debate regarding the allegation that as an adolescent he and his family converted to Islam (either in his Spanish hometown of Córdoba or later in the Moroccan city of Fez) to avoid the ire of the Almohad dynasty, and that he lived as a Muslim until early adulthood. No credible evidence of this exists in Jewish sources. We know, however, that many in his family’s social class did feign conversion to survive the militant Islamic regime that expanded across Northern Africa and much of the Iberian peninsula in his lifetime. Citing four Arabic sources, Kraemer surmises that Maimonides “practiced Islam in Fez and eventually left and sailed to Acre. We do not know whether he was already a practicing Muslim when he came to Fez.”

The Jewish position has been that Maimonides did not convert but rather engaged in “taqiyya” or dissimulation and, at most, lived as if he were a Muslim, something quite common of Jews in that perilous period. As I read Kraemer, that distinction (outright conversion vs. dissimulation) may be important to many Jews, but it is practically irrelevant to this biography. By Kraemer’s lights, Maimonides did not simply live and work among Muslims; his entire worldview was infused with Islamic methods, ideas and ideology. The author argues, for example, that the subtle balance in Maimonides’s legal code between “preservation of tradition on one side, and change and progress on the other” stems from his melding of the Talmudic tradition with key principles of Islamic legal interpretation.

I, too, have sensed the Islamic influence on Maimonides, especially when reading his works with Muslim colleagues. Once, when discussing passages from The Guide for the Perplexed and Mishneh Torah, a Muslim scholar insisted that Maimonides’ positions were “pure Islam” and that “Ibn Maimun” — as he is known in Arabic — “is a small ‘m’ Muslim,” citing chapter and verse of thinkers Maimonides never mentions.

The fact that Maimonides cites some Islamic sources, especially the philosopher Abu Nasar al-Farabi (c. 870-950), is well known. More subtle is the way even his ostensibly Jewish positions, and the methods he uses to reach them, appear to be taken, sometimes verbatim, from the Muslim tradition. One of Maimonides’ great theological innovations, for example, was his Thirteen Principles of Faith, a list of Judaism’s central beliefs. As Judaism is a religion founded on law and not on belief per se, no such creed had been attempted before. But the notion of principles, or pillars, of faith had existed for some time in Islam, and Kraemer contends that several of Maimonides’s specific articles of faith — including the first (God’s existence), second (divine unity) and particularly the third (God is not a corporeal being) — reflect the influence of such Islamic thinkers as al-Farabi, Ibn Sina and Ibn Tumart, founder of the Almohad movement.

Two ironies emerge from Kraemer’s book. First, that the great architect of medieval and modern Judaism seems to have lived for a time, at least outwardly, as a Muslim; whether this was a feigned or true conversion, he was an insider in Muslim culture. And second, that what is often considered original in Maimonides is not very original at all. Throughout the book, Kraemer shows how many of Maimonides’ contributions are derivative, not just of Aristotle and Plato, but also of Muslim thinkers. He notes that Maimonides’s discussion of the five types of speech in Jewish law employs the same five categories contained in Islamic jurisprudence. He shows that Maimonides’s prohibition of using sacred poems for mundane purposes (such as setting them to music at communal gatherings) is taken directly from a commentary on Plato’sRepublic by the Muslim philosopher Averroes.

Kraemer’s subtitle, One of Civilization’s Greatest Minds, is unfortunate, because the book undermines this claim throughout. Kraemer shows that for Jews and Judaism, Maimonides was certainly an innovator, and the depth of his knowledge and compassion was truly astounding. But as a contributor to the ideas of Western (including medieval Islamic) civilization, he did not have much new to offer. ·